Reliable
by redex
Summary: KakaGai. Gai knows him too well, and the cycle goes on. Spoilers only for Kakashi Gaiden.


Gai is the one to find him - of course he is. Who else would? He knows where he hides and how he thinks, if only a tiny bit. That tiny bit is more than anyone else alive can. 

Kakashi looks like something that are used to fighten inquisitive children out of dangerous swamps. The dogs give him a sniff and then a whine before poofing out of this existence. He must have called them up before he passed out or they had come out themselves to take care of him. Tortoises weren't nearly so affectionate; but then, Maito Gai doesn't need to be taken care of.

The snow started falling again and Gai rushed to drag a chakra-infused emergency blanket around Kakashi's compulsively shivering body. Though his body moved, his mind was mostly silent. This had happened too often before to warrant a commentary, and yet still chilled Gai's soul to the bone. He unzipped his own vest and drew the bundled body against it, while simultaneously sending out a flare to signal their position. Meditating on warmth, he huddled in the growing piles of dangerous white to wait for help.

---

The first time was when Kakashi woke up and panicked in the hospital bed, flinging aside bandages and clawing at his eye. It was Maito Gai who snatched his hands out of the air and pressed him firmly down against the bed with all his young weight. He had just come in to drop off a fruit bowl in passing, determined not to witness the trauma his Eternal Rival and his team had suffered. Now, it was as though Fate had decided differently. 

Gai talked him out of his hysteria, scaring himself with his own effectiveness. Kakashi eventually allowed the nurse to replace the bandages on his body and head, after he was done crying. Gai told himself that everyone cried, especially Obito, but that didn't change that watching this person cry was the worst feeling since Gai's parents had died. 

---

When Gai scooped Kakashi's disturbingly limp body from the water, he reflexively slid the headband down over Obito's eye in a subtle movement before he handed him over to the other two jounin. Kakashi and Itachi - these were two people who were the same in their essence. The only difference between them was that Uchiha Itachi had never had a rival.

It was the Duty of Maito Gai to set this right: Kakashi didn't loose to anyone but him. 

And yet, there was a passing relief as the rogue ninjas chose to flee and Gai could instead turn back to gather his fallen comrade. A sense of deja vu swept over his consciousness, but he ignored it. He would do this as many times as it was necessary, for however long Kakashi resisted death.

---

Again and again, Gai found himself sitting beside a neatly tucked hospital bed, listening to the clock tick the moments by. He hated the enforced stillness, the silence and the smell of antibacterial soaps on every surface. He wanted to take that prone body and leave, wrap it in an old quilt and put the radio on low to the kind of jazz and blues that they both liked. 

He fantasized about these things (about Kakashi in the morning, eating toast in bed and laughing about crumbs in uncomfortable places, dog hair everywhere but the window open and summer blowing in, the hot water whistling on the stove as a favorite old sweater was pulled over a chilled body and then collected for a hug) but remained.

---

Finally, Kakashi opened his eyes - both of them. He cleared his throat and blinked a little before smiling and reaching out blindly with his nearest hand towards Gai. 

"Hi," he whispered, his voice low and a little cracked. 

"Good morning, my eternal rival," Gai would reply, leaning in with an answering smile to clasp that wavering hand with his own. The awakening made all the hours spent in the hard hospital chairs worth it. At this moment, Kakashi would always seem a little pained to find that he was still alive and a shadow of a ghost would cross his face like a cloud on a pure fall day.

"Don't worry," Gai would say, squeezing the hand just a little and maybe touching the unscarred cheek to chase the cloud away. "I'm here." 


End file.
